FACTBOX

To unravel the workings of the brain, neuroscientist Michael
Posner and colleagues at the University of Oregon have
turned to an ancient discipline: meditation.

A recent experiment tested college students' ability to
focus their attention and filter out distractions. Half the
students received training in mindfulness meditation while
the other half received relaxation training.

After five days, meditators outpaced nonmeditators on the
attention test, and they became significantly better at
handling stress. Saliva samples revealed lower levels of the
hormone cortisol when the meditators were subjected to an
anxiety-inducing math quiz.

"This is the first time I've ever been involved in
anything like meditation," says Posner, who conducted
the experiment with Yi-Yuan Tang, a visiting scholar. But he
sees promise in using the ancient mind-training practice to
understand how the brain regulates awareness and attention,
an area of neuroscience he helped pioneer.

Meditation is making a big comeback among brain scientists
after its first heyday in the 1970s. Advances in brain
imaging and monitoring have made it possible to see inside
the brain and explore the biological forces creating and
driving conscious thoughts.

"Now we are in a position to ask questions about
people's experience and measure brain activity in close
to real time," says Clifford Saron, a scientist at the
Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California at
Davis. And with growing numbers of people turning to
meditation for stress relief, Saron says, there's a
pressing need to figure out how the many forms of mental
practice actually work.

FACTBOX

To unravel the workings of the brain, neuroscientist Michael
Posner and colleagues at the University of Oregon have
turned to an ancient discipline: meditation.

A recent experiment tested college students' ability to
focus their attention and filter out distractions. Half the
students received training in mindfulness meditation while
the other half received relaxation training.

After five days, meditators outpaced nonmeditators on the
attention test, and they became significantly better at
handling stress. Saliva samples revealed lower levels of the
hormone cortisol when the meditators were subjected to an
anxiety-inducing math quiz.

"This is the first time I've ever been involved in
anything like meditation," says Posner, who conducted
the experiment with Yi-Yuan Tang, a visiting scholar. But he
sees promise in using the ancient mind-training practice to
understand how the brain regulates awareness and attention,
an area of neuroscience he helped pioneer.

Meditation is making a big comeback among brain scientists
after its first heyday in the 1970s. Advances in brain
imaging and monitoring have made it possible to see inside
the brain and explore the biological forces creating and
driving conscious thoughts.

"Now we are in a position to ask questions about
people's experience and measure brain activity in close
to real time," says Clifford Saron, a scientist at the
Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California at
Davis. And with growing numbers of people turning to
meditation for stress relief, Saron says, there's a
pressing need to figure out how the many forms of mental
practice actually work.